Digital Photographs

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If you have a camera, you can make money from your photographs by submitting them to stock photography websites. Stock photographs are those used for commercial design purposes by people such as web designers, graphic artists, advertising companies etc. These people can visit a stock photography website and find images they need by performing keyword searches. Suitable ones are purchased and downloaded "royalty-free", and you get paid a commission as a result. Royalty-free means the purchaser pays a one-off fee and can re-use the image multiple times for different purposes, without having to pay for each use of the image.

Ideally you should have a digital camera to submit your photographs to these sites, although many of them accept scanned images. They generally must be a minimum number of pixels in size such as 3 megapixels (3 million pixels - multiply pixel height by width to get this value) so you would need a camera of sufficient specification. They must also be of good quality, eg. clear, in focus with good lighting etc. You need to check the requirements on each site, as they are all slightly different.

Images deemed unsuitable are rejected, sometimes because there are too many similar images already on the site. However images rejected by one site may be accepted by another. Try to be as creative as possible to increase your chances. Images can also be rejected if they are not "stockworthy" which means there is unlikely to be any demand for them. Popular images tend to be those that portray certain subjects such as business, sport, holidays, leisure etc. or those that convey an emotion such as love, fear, excitement, sadness etc.

If you have a recognisable person in a photograph, it must be submitted to the stock photo website with a "model release" form. This must be signed by the person in the image. One form for each person if more than one. The form is generally available to download from the website. You must also be careful with recognisable trademarks or logos which will cause the image to be rejected.

Before submitting a photograph, it's a good idea to improve its sharpness and saturation using photo editing software such as Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop. You can also tidy up the image by removing imperfections or cropping. However if you have a large plain area in your photograph around the main subject, it's better to leave this uncropped as graphic artists often use this space for a slogan or other text.

Most stock photography websites allow you to maintain ownership of the copyright of your images, which means you can submit them to many different sites to increase your income. You get paid each time someone downloads one of your images, typically around 0.20 US Dollars. You can make a reasonable income (even a living) from this, but it takes time to build up. To make a living from it you would need many thousands of high quality "stockworthy" images on dozens of websites. However this is a "passive" income which you receive in perpetuity, even when you're not actually taking or submitting photographs.

You can usually be paid by a cheque, or direct into a PayPal account if you have one. Payment is generally made when your total commission reaches a certain amount such as 100 US Dollars. Many stock photography websites also run a referral system, where you get paid by referring other photographers, and potential purchasers of the images.

Below are links to some stock photography websites where you can sign-up for free and start submitting your photo's.